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Can anyone justify microtransactions in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey?

Say what you like about the Assassin’s Creed franchise: it’s certainly not afraid to re-invent itself time after time. Technically this is what makes Assassin’s Creed so unique, and how it’s managed to capture so much attention with every new instalment. With every new game the player has the chance to explore a new historical playground. Yet despite us stopping at more historical time periods than the Magic School Bus, most people agreed it was a franchise desperately in need of rejuvenation. The regular annual releases were put on hold, and Ubisoft went away to think about what they could do to make Assassin’s Creed exciting again. They came back with Assassin’s Creed: Origins, taking the story back to its roots while also introducing much more RPG-focused gameplay, complete with levels, XP, and stats.

Now we have Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, taking us around ancient Greece with either a male or female protagonist. Ubisoft seems to be pushing this as some sort of ground-breaking moment, perhaps as a means to make amends for when they said female characters are too much effort to build. Hang on, haven’t there already been three AC games when you play as a woman? Assassin’s Creed: China, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, and Assassin’s Creed: Liberation? Why was this such a big deal when it was announced? I’m sure that someone can explain it to me…

Anyway, that’s the history lesson over. Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. Odyssey has microtransactions in it. Like any games with microtransactions in it, questions have to be asked: the big one, namely, is why? In a single player game such as Assassin’s Creed (and indeed all games, but especially single player) the impetus is to make progress with the use of the games mechanics to overcome the obstacles that the game presents, and this progress should be rewarded with benefits. These rewards should be given to the player when they’ve used their knowledge and understanding of the mechanics to their best. This is the point of video games. Narrative can be used to enhance this feeling of progression; seeing how your character establishes themselves in the world is rewarding when coupled with how you can squash the enemies that were giving you so much grief 5 or 6 levels ago.

credit to reddit user r/RinoTheBouncer for this image

Microtransactions are a massive spanner in the works in this rewards system. Why would you play the game to reap the rewards that it might give you for playing the game, when you can just shell out another bit of money and get it right away? Of course, if you continue to play the game then there lies a huge amount of doubt as to whether you’ll be rewarded for playing the game in the same way as you would be for paying that extra fee. There’s a paywall in front of in-game content and you don’t know how much of the game is only behind it; the only way to find out is open your wallet again, bearing in mind that you may have already paid £50 for this game (or more if you bought a special edition).

This is broadly speaking about microtransactions, so let’s talk about Odyssey’s specific microtransactional issue. The one that has received the most attention and criticism is the “time saver”, such an XP booster that you can buy for an extra $10 which doubles the XP you get throughout the game. Given that Odyssey is clocking for most people at 50+ hours, it’s undoubtable that it has a lot of content and there’s a lot to play through. There’s no option to just play the story missions either, as story missions are only accessible once the player has reached a certain level. Therefore, what is the motivation behind giving people the option to play the game faster? Ubisoft perhaps see themselves as catering to all markets, but it reeks of deliberately making levelling up a chore, and the XP boost is the only relief that the player has from grinding to level up. If people are paying to play the game less, it might be worth considering that the game is not ultimately worth playing.

An Ubisoft rep has made a statement regarding these microtransactions:

“Time-savers, such as the Permanent XP Boost, are 100% optional for players who want to supercharge their progression, and were not considered in any of the economy or difficulty balancing of the game. Players have the ability to change the difficulty setting at any time in the Main Menu Options to find the right level of challenge for them.”

These microtransactions don’t seem to have gained much attention from people who have bought the game; in fact there seem to be a good amount of people defending the games microtransactions with a flippant, half-hearted, and dismissive “what did you expect” attitude. The collective outrage that was seen with games such as Battlefront II is absent. This may be down to the euphemistic marketing of these “time-savers”; their intention may seem like it’s aiding the player, but it’s covering up the flaws of a game intentionally designed to waste time.

It’s ironic that Spider-Man, a single player focused game with absolutely zero microtransactions, is the quickest selling game in Sony’s history. With this, it also has one of the highest Platinum Trophy completion rates on PS4. It also has an XP system; maybe Insomniac can teach Ubisoft a thing or two about how to build an XP system that you don’t have to pay extra for to suddenly becoming rewarding.

No matter how much they sugarcoat the microtransactions, with the pre-made answers ‘it’s all about giving the gamer more options’…
the ONLY REALITY and TRUTH is
Whenever a game features microtransactions, it means:

– IN ALL CASES the microtransactions will have a major influence over the overall progression

– the gamer will not be rewarded through progression as he should, if there were no MT’s

– the game’s longevity and difficulty will be highly affected

– the rewards, bonus, loot, etc the game will offer the gamer, as he finishes the levels, kills enemies, do side quests, etc etc, will be affected by 10’000% !

– ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC

Whenever there are micro transactions, EVERYTHING CHANGES.

When you must kill 3 trillions of enemies, just to earn enough xp to be able to cross a special bridge or move to a different area in the map, when you could have done it simply by killing a few hundreds, it means the micro transactions are just kicking hard…the game is simply boring you,to a level, that you prefer spending 10 or 20 bucks on a special item then spending 50 hours doing the exact same shit…

When the best area in the game is locked, and you need to wear a special armor set with enough power to beat the guardian and unlock it, but you need to travel to 50 other places, finish 30 quests, kill 5’000 enemies and collect 300 magical flowers, all that in 70 hours… the game is begging you to spend another 20 bucks on that armor set, just to avoid all the grinding…

Please don’t tell me it just a matter of giving the choice/option. ..
THE WHOLE GAME IS MADE IN A WAY that it is much better to spend some little cash than doing all the same crap over and over again. ..

I’m really happy and proud Single Player games like god of war, Spider-Man, horizon zero dawn and a few others have sold like 10 million copies. ..
Because now, companies like aMTivision (copyright..)/Emptivision OR Pubis-soft can’t just come and say ‘oh, you see…god of war only sold 500’000 copies…that’s why studios must use micro transactions, to cover the losses, bla bla bla’…

These single player games have proved an amazing game can sell fantastically well, without the need of fking micro transactions !

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JoeTooSlow

Fuelled by black coffee and a hatred for lootboxes, Joe has come a long way since his earliest memory of video games; watching over a friend’s shoulder while he played Gex: Enter the Gecko.
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